(PR) After more than 15 years of conveying negative vibes, warning listeners about the dangers of being in a band and lamenting their time in the music industry (case in point: the band's radio hit, "Sell Out"), the members of Southern California ska-punk stalwarts Reel Big Fish want to let the world know of a big change: They're finally happy. Some of that happiness stems from being released from their former label's contract. "We're very happy to be off the major label because they didn't understand us," says front man Aaron Barrett. "They didn't know what to call us, how to market us or who to market us to. They are used to pre-packaged pop and radio-ready rock and I think we were just too weird for them to comprehend. So eventually they just ended up doing nothing." Freed from such obligations, Reel Big Fish is finally releasing its first independent studio album since leaving its former label. The self-produced Monkeys For Nothin' And The Chimps For Free finds the members of Reel Big Fish doing things their way. In fact, it features material done their way, from quite a long ways back. "We decided we were going to do a B-sides and rarities thing, but we didn't have anything to release, so we were going to re-record some things that we were going to call B-sides and rarities," explains Barrett. "But then we realized that most of that stuff no one had ever heard, so it wasn't really B-sides and rarities, it was just new songs. But those weren't good enough, so we wrote some new songs that were actually new, and suddenly we're making a new album."
Monkeys For Nothin and the Chimps For Free Hits stores on 7/10. See the band on the road with Less Than Jake at the following dates:
7/3 Kansas City, MO Uptown Theatre
7/4 Milwaukee, WI Milwaukee Summerfest
7/5 Royal Oak, MI Royal Oake Music Theatre
7/6 Grand Rapids, MI The Intersection
7/7 Buffalo, NY The Town Ballroom
7/8 Quebec City, QU Festival D'Ete-d'Youville Square
7/10 Clifton Park, NY Northern Lights
7/11 Providence, RI Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel
7/12 Hampton Beach, NH Hampton Beach Casino
7/13 Philadelphia, PA Electric Factory
7/14 Baltimore, MD Rams Head Live
7/15 Sayreville, NJ Starland Lot
7/17 Allentown, PA Crocodile Rock
7/18 Boston, MA Avalon Ballroom
7/19 New York, NY Roseland Ballroom
7/20 Norfolk, VA The Norva
7/21 Richmond, VA Toad's Place Richmond
7/23 Ft Lauderdale, FL Revolution
7/24 Saint Petersburg, FL Jannus Landing
7/25 Orlando, FL Hard Rock Live
7/27 Houston, TX Meridian
7/28 Corpus Christi, TX The Pavilion @ Concrete Street
7/29 Dallas, TX The Palladium Ballroom
7/31 Anaheim, CA The Grove of Anaheim
8/2 Los Angeles, CA Wiltern Theatre
8/3 San Diego, CA House of Blues
8/4 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre
8/5 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues
8/6 Salt Lake City, UT The Great Salt Air
8/7 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre
8/9 Tulsa, OK Cain's Ballroom
8/10 St Louis, MO The Pageant
8/11 Omaha, NE Sokol Auditorium
8/12 Sioux Falls, SD Rankota Exhibit Hall
8/14 Minneapolis, MN The Myth
8/15 Chicago, IL Congress Theatre
8/16 Cleveland, OH Agora Theatre
8/17 Cincinnati, OH Bogarts
8/18 Columbus, OH Newport Music Hall
8/19 Rochester, NY Water Street Music Hall
8/21 Pittsburgh, PA Club Zoo
8/22 Scranton, PA Tink's
